Intex sells 15,000 units of Firefox smartphones in 3 days

Domestic handset maker Intex said it has sold 15,000 units of its Firefox-powered smartphone in the country within three days of launch.

Intex had launched the Cloud FX smartphone, priced at Rs 1,999. It claims that the device is the cheapest smartphone available in the country. ”Intex has already sold 15,000 units of Cloud FX in just 3 days, which went on sale on August 25 exclusively on Snapdeal,” the company said. It added that maximum sales were reported from the Southern part of the country.

The homegrown firm had recently roped in two actors — Anushka Shetty and Sudeep — as its brand ambassadors for the South market last month. ”About 70 percent of the sales took place in tier II and III markets. The device is a hit amongst the youth as maximum purchases were made by 18-25 year olds,” it said. The company added that it will sell one lakh devices by the end of this month and reach the sales target of 5 lakh devices by year-end. The Cloud FX is targetted at consumers who are looking to upgrade from feature phones to smartphones. Intex aims to capture a larger chunk of the booming affordable smartphone market in India.

Handset makers are betting big on mobile Internet to reach out to newer audiences. Various reports suggest that the next billion population accessing the Internet for the first time will do so on their phones instead of personal computers. Companies like Microsoft, which acquired Nokia’s handset division, are also targeting the affordable smartphone category aggressively, estimating it to be a $50 billion annual opportunity. The smartphone market in India grew at 84 percent year-on-year to 18.42 million units in Q2 2014 from 10.02 million units (in April-June 2013 quarter), as per research firm IDC said. Korean handset maker Samsung led the smartphone market with 29 percent share, followed by Micromax 18 percent, Karbonn 8 percent and Lava six percent.

Software major Mozilla, which runs the Firefox browser, had showcased a smartphone prototype costing as little as $25 at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February, targeting at developing countries including India and China. It had partnered Intex and Spice from India for launching these low-cost devices in the country, which is the fastest growing smartphone market globally.

Spice had also launched its device, Fire One MiFX 1, last week for Rs 2,299. Sales numbers of Spice’s handset were not available. The Cloud FX is powered by 1 GHz processor, has 128MB RAM, 256MB memory (expandable upto 4GB), 2MP rear and VGA front camera and 1,250 mAh battery.